Issue Briefs

In November 2012, California’s Air Resources board auctioned off the first round of carbon permits for its voluntary cap-and-trade market, which officially went live on January 1, 2013. This initiative came out of California Assembly Bill 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act, which sets a goal of lowering greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 (a reduction of about 30 percent).

The potential for widespread hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” threatens New York’s abundance of farmers markets, community-supported agriculture, and locally grown produce and food products. Fracking is a process that the oil and gas industry uses to extract natural gas and oil from shale rock formations buried deep within the Earth. It requires large quantities of water mixed with sand and toxic chemicals, which are injected underground at high pressure to crack dense rock and release oil and gas.

During the 111th Congress, as legislators debated ways to cope with climate change, the flaws of cap-and-trade approaches doomed the attempt to pass the American Clean Energy and Security Act. A final push came in the form of a different bill. Senators Maria Cantwell and Susan Collins introduced S.2877, the “CLEAR Act,” which rested on a principle called cap-and-dividend. Although cap-and-dividend avoids the pitfalls of trading credits and offsets, it still relies on a market solution for pollution that upends our commitment to stop pollution and protect our families and our environment.

The last 20 years of environmental protection have seen a steady shift away from many of the tried-and-true regulatory control approaches that force industries to implement increasingly more protective pollution abatement measures. We are witnessing a move toward market-driven off set programs that substitute trading for technology. With both air and water, industries are now being offered pay-to-pollute approaches that enable them to purchase pollution “credits” instead of working to reduce their harmful discharges. Of course, these market mechanisms come with a whole host of loopholes and liabilities.

Whenever you read a report or hear on the news that the economy is growing, what you are hearing is that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is growing. But while GDP measures economic activity, it does not measure the distribution of the wealth created by that activity, or the quality of our air and water, or the quality of our schools. Yet, when we hear GDP is growing many of us believe that the country is doing better than it was. Given that economists, politicians and the media treat GDP this way, it is no surprise that we think this way.

Despite the alarming water crisis the world is facing, private interests are polluting, exploiting and selling water — a resource essential for all life. A 2009 publication, sponsored by the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation and several for-profit multinational companies, predicted that by 2030 global freshwater demand would exceed available supplies by 40 percent. In addition to the increasing pollution and overuse of the available freshwater supply, climate change will exacerbate water shortages worldwide. In fact, a UN-Water report said, “…climate change is expected to account for about 20 percent of the global increase in water scarcity.”

From the Sacramento Valley to Los Angeles County, the oil and gas industry has been fracking in California without clear regulatory oversight for many years. Now, the next generation of drilling and fracking involving much more fluid and chemicals injected at much higher pressure, and creating much more waste, pollution and risk — has arrived on the West Coast.

The British company Oxitec has released millions of genetically engineered (GE) mosquitoes in the Cayman Islands, Brazil and Malaysia. Now Oxitec wants to release its mosquitoes in the Florida Keys in 2012.

The company claims these altered mosquitoes will battle dengue fever. However, basic safety questions remain unanswered.

Sludge is the solid remnants of the wastewater treatment process. Wastewater treatment facilities, most of which are publicly owned treatment works (POTWs), are able to remove many of the bacteria, viruses and chemicals that end up in sludge. POTWs serve approximately 75 percent of the U.S. population. Yet these facilities do not have enough money to purchase the technology needed to remove all of the prescription drugs and chemicals that enter the wastewater stream every day from our household and personal care products.

Both the novel application technique and the unprecedent- ed volume of dispersant used make the BP Deepwater Horizon response unique. Many experts remain concerned about the increased use of toxins in the ocean which may lead to longer-term ecological problems and may have unpredictable impacts from use of the chemical underwater. Dispersants do not eliminate oil from the environment; they break down the oil into smaller, less visible particles and often sink it to the bottom, out of sight. The dispersant and the smaller oil particles remain as toxins in the water.